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We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

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Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#211

Post by lultimouomo »

manigandham wrote: post #144
TomMckenny wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...political advertising... This is a euphemism for quid pro quo bribery. The Europeans and other democracies recognize it as such. It is clear that the Western Democracies have at least as much freedom of speech as the US. For example, they do not have leaders who get sport figures professionally banned for what is conspicuously an instance of unpaid political speech.

Absolutely not. Advertising is not bribery and the European region is nowhere near the freedom of speech principles of the US. It may feel the same, either because you have never said anything or have never been heard by anyone who cares, but there are countless examples of prosecution that would be summarily dismissed here in the States. Professionally "banned" is not a free speech issue in the slightest. Athletes c…

> the European region is nowhere near the freedom of speech principles of the US. It may feel the same, either because you have never said anything or have never been heard by anyone who cares, but there are countless examples of prosecution that would be summarily dismissed here in the States.

In the other hand I think in most of Europe gag orders are much more restricted in scope and application than they are in the US.

First amendment seems to be interpreted broadly there, but not nearly as much as national security.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#213

Post by woadwarrior01 »

valarauca1 wrote: post #49
warent wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine one time. Then everything else imports the `MZ_CONST` file which then references the `MK` or `ZBERG` variables.

dog it’s a PHP shop, nobody re-uses code

Facebook recently became the principal sponsor of the Python Software Foundation[1]. Although I don't have any concrete numbers to cite, there's a lot of Python code at Facebook. Calling it a PHP shop would be highly inaccurate and myopic.

[1]: https://www.python.org/psf/sponsorship/sponsors/

Disclaimer: I work there on python runtime optimization, which mostly involves writing C (and C++) code. Also, I've never had to write any PHP/Hack code.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#214

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

Zyst wrote: post #171
amichal wrote: post #98

I am appalled at how bad Facebook did here but buried at the very end of the article Vice does indicate that they needed to provide a valid traceable drivers license and last four of a (maybe?) matching SSN. This means that had they intended to actually publish the ads they would have put some real person on the hook (assuming the submitted data is actually checked against something). Still too easy but for the first…

>In order to run a “Paid for by” disclosure on Facebook, you must first submit the name to the company for approval, along with an image of a valid driver’s license and the last four digits of your Social Security number. Paragraph in question. Are the driver's licences they used not the ones of the Senators? Or maybe they photoshopped them, or something along those lines? I'm a bit unhappy at the lack of elaboration…

That they say a valid driver's license makes it sound like it doesn't have to be the senator in question's.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#215

Post by jamesrcole »

andrewflnr wrote: post #31

People need to think very carefully about the consequences of any policy they propose to curb this sort of behavior. Do we really want Facebook making judgment calls about the content of political ads? Do they need to do thorough real-life identity verification of people buying any ads, or any ads that may be construed as political? Then the real kicker: does every ad provider need to do this, or just the ones that a…

> Then the real kicker: does every ad provider need to do this, or just the ones that are too big to fail? Requiring that level of effort would quash small ad providers in the same way that onerous copyright verification laws would quash small content hosts.

It comes down to what you think is more important. Lessening false advertising that manipulates the democratic process (and of course the big question is to what extent this can be lessened by such policies) or having an environment conducive to small advertising companies.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#216

Post by Spearchucker »

manigandham wrote: post #144
TomMckenny wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...political advertising... This is a euphemism for quid pro quo bribery. The Europeans and other democracies recognize it as such. It is clear that the Western Democracies have at least as much freedom of speech as the US. For example, they do not have leaders who get sport figures professionally banned for what is conspicuously an instance of unpaid political speech.

Absolutely not. Advertising is not bribery and the European region is nowhere near the freedom of speech principles of the US. It may feel the same, either because you have never said anything or have never been heard by anyone who cares, but there are countless examples of prosecution that would be summarily dismissed here in the States. Professionally "banned" is not a free speech issue in the slightest. Athletes c…

Not sure about other EU member states or the EU itself, but in Germany free speech is intentionally not a right, because of the German right to live free of abuse by others. Speech can obviously be used as a form of abuse.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#217

Post by enitihas »

cle wrote: post #199
manigandham wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you communicate to millions of people then? What is your strategy? Visit every single person's home?

Do you not recognize the irony of asking this question on Hacker News? And for an additional layer of irony, Hacker News doesn't advertise either (that I'm aware of).

Actually HN does advertise. Just yesterday I saw an add in the Google search bar for "news.ycombinator.com" on Firefox focus while searching "hacker news".

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#218

Post by r_singh »

dillondoyle wrote: post #209

I buy political ads as a big part of our business. This cycle, FB is FAR easier to work with than Google. I get the sense that FB simply wants to pass off the liability to ad buyer (who signed an affidavit to run those paid for ads... and Vice broke that contract but also probably the law). Whereas Google is giving huge problems for basically all our clients because they seem to be doing manual DD. Not focusing on wh…

It's interesting to hear your thoughts as a person whose work requires to interface with the political-ad-vetting process of web giants.

If you were a representative of the public (with interests in safeguarding the authenticity of information promoted to individuals of the public), would you endorse a difficult google like vetting process or a superficial, lenient vetting process adopted by Facebook?

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#219

Post by bluecalm »

esturk wrote: post #150
softwaredoug wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is political speech a different category than other forms of speech? Think of the plausible scenario of a certain Presidents FEC deciding friendly speech isn’t “political” (it’s “patriotic”!) But critical speech is clearly political and should be regulated.

Thanks. Your above says advertisement, you said speech. Thats a big difference. Advertisement can be regulated which is the focus of this thread. No one is saying to regulate some speech in a rally but is said speech is reshape as some advertisment then they should be regulated.

You need even more money to organize rallies, get anyone to report on them and to get any airtime for yourself. Advertising is much cheaper and easier way to get people to look at your ideas.

Banning political advertising is just a play to strengthen incumbents and hurt new comers. I also think it's morally wrong. It's "you should not try to influence others by yourself - only government approved channels are ok and maybe you will get a minute a day if you're already visible in the polls" kind of law. It's censorship reminding me of Soviet days. Europe is terrible when it comes to freedom of expression. Blasphemy laws are another example of prosecuting speech some groups don't like.

Re: We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them

#220

Post by bluecalm »

cle wrote: post #200
softwaredoug wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is political speech a different category than other forms of speech? Think of the plausible scenario of a certain Presidents FEC deciding friendly speech isn’t “political” (it’s “patriotic”!) But critical speech is clearly political and should be regulated.

This is orthogonal to my point. I'm just surprised (disappointed?) at how some people think it's so inconceivable to communicate without advertisements.

It's politics. How do you convince millions of people to look at your ideas and yourself without ads? You need to be a billionaire to organize rallies in major cities and that will still be less effective than ads. You're only getting airtime if you're an incumbent or already popular. Internet made it possible to get attention of millions of people relatively cheaply. No wonder it's in the interest of ruling elite to ban doing that.
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